“I’m excited the search is over, we have our man, and look forward to what Todd will bring to our defense, our team, and our University,” said Richt. “I think it is particularly valuable that he has a wealth of experience on the defensive side of the ball at both the NFL and collegiate levels…”

“Coach Pruitt, Coach Rocker, Coach Ekeler and Coach Sherrer, they all coached high school ball and I think it’s good when you have that,” he said. “These guys are used to taking young guys, taking them from ground zero fundamentally and really showing them how to tackle, showing them how to defeat blocks and how to do things fundamentally sound. They’re really good teachers here and they were teachers as well at their earlier schools. And everyone of them was also on a national championship team in college so they all know what it takes to win and because of that I think they have developed a standard of how we’re to operate. This is what we consider maximum effort and we expect that every single play and if you don’t we’ll put somebody else in there…”

Now I don’t think that high school coaches are better as a class at teaching fundamentals than NFL coaches are. But I do think they’re more familiar with teaching fundamentals in a time-constrained setting. There’s less you can do coaching in college than in the pros and that’s a lesson I’m not sure Grantham fully accepted. And that may be what gives me the most hope for an improvement on the defensive side of the ball this season.

“One thing Coach Pruitt said to me in the interview process… that I fell in love with was, ‘If we can’t execute it, I won’t call it in the game.’ So sometimes I think some coaches think the scheme is going to win the game. We’re going to out-scheme everybody. But it’s really the fundamentals that count. You may call the best defense for that situation but if your defense can’t execute it properly, we’ve got issues.

“And so Coach Pruitt is like, ‘Coach, I’m just telling you right now, I’m a pretty simple ball coach and we can do as many things schematically as anybody else in the nation but as we’re installing things and getting the guys used to what we’re doing, if we go into game one and I think there’s something in the game plan that I don’t think we can execute, we just won’t call it. We’ll make sure they know what they’re doing when they’re out there.’ And that will be a big deal for us,” said Richt.

It’s going to be interesting comparing the progression of the Georgia and Louisville defenses this season.

Why won’t you be surprised? Do you think Louisville’s players will be able to understand and execute his schemes better than our players were or do you just think his schemes will play better against the weaker ACC offenses? I say his defense will be fine except when he plays FSU and Clemson but you could say the same for the rest of the league’s defenses too.

I won’t be surprised at all if you see Louisville’s defense running around like they don’t know what to do. Petrino’s offense will score a lot of points just like ours did so they’ll win a lot of games even when they give up 35 points.

I’d be surprised, and befuddled, if Louisville has a good defense this year and UGA doesn’t. That would mean it isn’t the schemes or the coaching, but something else. It basically would mean going back to the drawing board.

You’re making the mistake if you think Grantham is a ‘very good’ coordinator. Go look at the stats; his defenses declined just about every place he’s been. ‘Very good’ coordinators don’t get fired by the Browns after three seasons. Good riddance…

I think the attitude projected by Richt and Pruitt is one of going back to basics for practice, but if you think that Pruitt doesn’t have the schemes necessary for a D team overall to excel then you would just be a negative nimrod cruising for troll status. Just because he will be careful for his players’s sake doesn’t mean that Pruitt doesn’t have game-winning D schemes. I’m proud to have him just for the Auburn game this year. He’s beaten Marshall already.

A scheme no matter the sophistication level is worthless unless it’s executed properly on the field. Grantham was good at creating sophisticated schemes to counter opposing offenses, the problem last year was our D couldn’t execute them.

In 2014 I’m more interested in seeing our D perform solid fundamentals. If we can quickly shed blocks, tackle at the point of contact, stop the loafing, take direct routes to the ball and cover well, this defense will significantly improve.

I’m glad Grantham is gone. Richt knew that Grantham’s scheme was too complicated for the players…that’s he was basically saying in Orlando. Pruitt will turn the D around this year…how much? We shall see.

“You may call the best defense for that situation but if your defense can’t execute it properly, we’ve got issues.”

True on offense as well. Of course, outside of the, we’ve been pretty good on that side of the ball for the past few years. But I hope this means we’re turning up our focus on execution there too. Always room to improve.

I think I wrote this post back in December. I still think college ball is more like high school than the pros mainly because you still have to stress and coach fundamentals to 18-19 yr. olds.

Bloviation for the Dawgnation

Quote Of The Day

“It brings back a great Bulldog running back in Thomas who has NFL playing experience and has had success as a college coach at multiple schools. He also inherits a position that has been built to an elite level by Bryan. And it gives Bryan the opportunity to return to coaching the position he played and the one where he cut his teeth serving as a graduate assistant under wide receiver coach John Eason here at UGA. It also provides him with a new experience as a passing game coordinator.” -- Mark Richt, AB-H, 2/16/15